nd Date
by Jody Armstrong
Summary: Taro sits at home, when an unexpected visitor arrives.


2nd Date

  


ACCESS DENIED

Taro frowned and tapped his fingers against his keyboard. He tapped a few more keys and then hit the return key.

ACCESS DENIED

Taro shook his head and climbed up from his stool, he began to pace his bedroom, as he walked backwards and forwards he automatically avoided the strewn mess of cables, motherboards and memory chips that littered his floor, off to one corner a pile of toys, untouched in years, slowly gathered dust. "Why can't I get it?" he mused to himself.

He glanced back to his Navi's computer screen as a bleep alerted him to a video window opening up. "Hi Taro."

Taro frowned, he didn't need this right now, not one bit. "Myu-Myu, what are you doing screwing my bandwidth, I'm busy."

"And I'm bored, are you coming to Cyberia?"

"No, not tonight, I'm busy, I told you already." Taro replied angrily as he continued to pace.

"Well fine, you be busy, I'll remember this when you're bored..." the window vanished as quickly as it appeared.

Taro raced back to his stool. "Myu-Myu wait....ah what's the point." he stared at the keyboard. "Think Taro, think, think, think...."

Taro jumped as a shadow fell on him from above. He twirled around and met eyes with his mother. "Hi honey, you've got a visitor, shall I show her in?"  
Taro shrugged. "Who is it?"

"She says her name is Lain."

Taro leant back, surprised. "L-L-Lain, she's here?"

Taro's mother smiled. "I thought you weren't interested in girl's, I'll bring her up, then I'll go get you both some cookies or something..."

As she left, Taro jumped off his stool, almost toppling over and began hurling his assortment of computer junk onto the pile of toys. "Gotta clear up..." he muttered to himself.

"He's right in there Lain." his mother said as Lain walked into the door, Lain turned and bowed to his mother.

"Thank you."

Taro spun around and straightened up, almost standing to attention, he perched himself up on his toes, trying to equal the height difference between the two of them. Even though Lain was small for her age, she was still taller than the boy. "Um...ah..." Taro scratched his head. "Ah, hi...hi Lain."

Lain bowed and smiled. "Hello Taro, I hope you don't mind me coming over unannounced." she said to him as she walked by him to his computer. "Nice system." she added, glancing over Taro's custom system.

Taro turned his head and huffed. "Yeah right, it's toast compared to _yours_, I don't even have a Psyche chip either, I'm not likely to get one now that The Knights are history." Taro moved between Lain and the monitor as she went to read what was on the screen. He perched himself on the stool. "You didn't have to have them all killed Lain, I heard it was you, now I don't get any cool gear."

Lain shrugged. "I had to do it, besides, looks like you've stockpiled a decent collection of parts."

Taro glanced to the pile Lain was pointing at. "What that stuff? That's just junk."

"You've got a couple of systems worth of boards there."

"Yeah, but look at what they gave you, _I _want one of those systems."

Lain walked over to the pile and began rummaging through, looking for something to upgrade her Navi with, old habits die hard. "One day Taro, perhaps one day."

"Why'd you come here?"

"I wondered how you were, JJ said you hadn't been to Cyberia lately, I haven't seen you on The Wired either, or at least, not your usual login. I wanted to make sure you were OK."

Taro crossed his arms and frowned. "Sure, I'm fine, all my Wired friends are toast now and some peopele on The Wired think I gave The Knights list to you in the first place."

"I'll sort those rumours out if you want Taro."

"Huh, no thanks, you've caused me enough trouble."

Lain had returned to the computer, her eyes narrowed as she read the screen. "Trying to hack Tachibana eh? They're supposed to be unbreakable."

"I'll get it, it'll take me a while, but I'll get it."

Lain smiled. "Good luck, I better go now, I have things to do, I just wanted to make sure you were OK." she held out her hand and dropped something onto Taro's lap. The boy glanced down and then gingerly picked up the chip.

"Whoa! This is your Psyche chip...."

"I know, I don't need it anymore, I don't really need any of it anymore."

"You mean, you mean I can have it?"

Lain nodded and smiled. "Bye Taro, take care of yourself." she said, giving a small wave as she walked out of his bedroom door.

Taro sat staring at the chip as he heard Lain say goodbye to his mother and explain why she didn't want to stay for cookies. Taro smiled to himself as he flicked his computer off and reached for his screwdriver.

As he flipped the top of his computer off he glanced at his window and saw Lain walking away down the road. "See you Angel." he said softly to himself.

  


  


  


2nd Date

Copyright Jody Armstrong 2001

jody.armstrong@ntlworld.com


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